Burning Blu-Ray DVDs is about to get a lot faster and capacity is about to quadruple thanks to Sony’s latest innovation on their optical media technology.

This week, Sony launched the first commercial 400mW blue-violet laser diode for Blu-Ray, which will allow triple or even quadruple layer recording at speeds of up to 8X-12X, as well as beefing up the Blu-Ray standard’s already impressive capacity to an astonishing 128GB.

Called the SLD3237VF, Sony’s new blue-violet laser diode will be cheap at just $12, pretty much assuring its quick roll-out across the products of multiple hardware vendors. It comes with a new spec called BDXL which offers multi-layer read and write supports which won’t necessarily work with older players, but Sony still says that the new laser should allow for a greater range of lenses and prisms to be used in making Blu-Ray devices, possibly dropping costs.

This isn’t as good as it can get, though. Last year, Sharp beat the capacity last year with their 500mW blue-violet laser, which may be on target to ship this year. Even Sony knows it can do better, having crafted a 100W blue-violet laser… but something tells me that one isn’t going to cost a paltry $12 wholesale.